The Celini or Celines were an ancient Ligurian people of Cisalpine Italy. They are known only from the account of an attack on the Roman colony of Placentia in 200 BC, in which they joined the Ilvates and other Ligurian peoples. Their territory cannot be located, and they have sometimes been identified with the Celeiates.
Name The Celini are recorded only by Livy, who names them among the Ligurian peoples drawn into the rising of 200 BC.Livy. Ab Urbe Condita, 31:10:2.
The tribe is otherwise unknown. They have sometimes been identified with the Celeiates, a Ligurian people who surrendered to Rome in 197 BC. The identification was proposed by Gaetano De Sanctis, but John Briscoe regards it as uncertain.
History The Celini appear only in the rising of 200 BC. In that year the Gaulish Insubres, Cenomani and Boii, joined by the Celini, the Ilvates and other Ligurian peoples, were stirred to arms by a Carthaginian commander who had stayed in Cisalpine Gaul after the Second Punic War. They attacked and took the colony of Placentia (modern Piacenza), but the rising was eventually put down.
References
Primary sources Livy. Ab Urbe Condita, books XXXI–XXXV. Edited by A. H. McDonald. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Bibliography